Subscription-based malware detection

ABSTRACT

A computerized method is described for authenticating access to a subscription-based service to detect an attempted cyber-attack. First, a request is received by a subscription review service to subscribe to the subscription-based service. The service is configured to analyze one or more objects for a potential presence of malware representing the attempted cyber-attack. Using service policy level information, the cloud broker selects a cluster from a plurality of clusters to analyze whether the one or more objects are associated with the attempted cyber-attack and establishes a communication session between the sensor and the cluster via the cloud broker. The service policy level information is associated with the customer and is used in accessing the subscription-based service. The service policy level information includes at least an identifier assigned to the customer.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/940,410 filed Mar. 29, 2018, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,791,138 issued on Sep. 29, 2020 which claims the benefit of priority on U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/479,208 filed Mar. 30, 2017 and U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/523,121 filed Jun. 21, 2017, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference.

FIELD

Embodiments of the disclosure relate to the field of cybersecurity. More specifically, one embodiment of the disclosure relates to a scalable, subscription-based malware detection system.

GENERAL BACKGROUND

Cybersecurity attacks have become a pervasive problem for organizations as many networked devices and other resources have been subjected to attack and compromised. An attack constitutes a threat to security of stored or in-transit data that may involve the infiltration of malicious software (i.e., “malware”) onto a network device with the intent to perpetrate malicious or criminal activity or even a nation-state attack.

Recently, malware detection has undertaken many approaches involving network-based, malware protection services. One approach involves “on-site” placement of dedicated malware detection appliances at various ingress points throughout a network or subnetwork. Each of the malware detection appliances is configured to extract information propagating over the network at an ingress point, analyze the information to determine a level of suspiciousness, and conduct an analysis of the suspicious information internally within the appliance itself. While successful in detecting advanced malware that is attempting to infect network devices connected to the network (or subnetwork), as network traffic increases, an appliance-based approach may exhibit a decrease in performance due to resource constraints.

In particular, a malware detection appliance has a prescribed (and finite) amount of resources (for example, processing power) that, as resource use is exceeded, requires either the malware detection appliance to resort to more selective traffic inspection or additional malware detection appliances to be installed. The installation of additional malware detection appliances requires a large outlay of capital and network downtime, as information technology (IT) personnel are needed for installation of these appliances. Also, dedicated, malware detection appliances provide limited scalability and flexibility in deployment.

An improved approach that provides scalability, reliability, and efficient and efficacious malware detection at lower capital outlay is desirable.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements and in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a first exemplary embodiment of a scalable, malware detection system.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of logic implemented within a sensor deployed within the malware detection system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary embodiment of a cluster implemented within the object evaluation service hosted by the second subsystem of the malware detection system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary embodiment of a compute node being part of the cluster of FIG. 3.

FIGS. 5A-5B are an exemplary flowchart of the general operations performed by the malware detection system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 6A is an embodiment of the operational flow conducted by the malware detection system of FIG. 1 in establishing communications with on-site sensors.

FIG. 6B is an embodiment of the operational flow between the sensors and the subscription review service of FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 is an exemplary embodiment of the analysis selection service of FIG. 1, including the cloud broker and the system monitoring logic.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a second exemplary embodiment of a scalable, malware detection system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to a subscription-based malware detection system, which includes a first subsystem and a second subsystem. Herein, the first subsystem may provide multi-tenancy through a cloud-based service that connects any number of subscribers to an object evaluation service, which is hosted by the second subsystem that is remotely located from the first subsystem. This multi-tenant, cloud-based service allows multiple subscribers to concurrently provide objects to the object evaluation service for malware detection.

Herein, a “subscriber” may be interpreted as a customer (e.g., an individual or an organization being a group of individuals operating within the same or different company, governmental agency, department or division, etc.) with authorized access to the malware detection system. According to embodiments of the invention, the subscriber deploys one or more devices (e.g., sensor), which, after credential checks, may gain authorized access to the malware detection system via the first subsystem. “Multi-tenancy” refers to a system architecture in which a single IT resource (in this case, the malware detection system), can serve multiple tenants (customers), each with shared access with specific privileges to the resource. Implementations of the invention are designed with multi-tenancy controls to enforce per-tenant segregation of sensitive data and metadata to avoid its access by other tenants, while achieving statistical data aggregation benefits, as well as scalability, reliability, and efficient and efficacious malware detection at lower capital outlay. Also, in embodiments of the invention, per-tenant controls of the malware detection system and its object evaluation service are achieved based on subscription information, which may include subscription attributes, customer-configured attributes, factory set attributes, and/or operationally dynamically generated attributes, as described below.

In general, the object evaluation service includes one or more clusters (referred to as “cluster(s)”) for use in analyzing objects provided by one or more sensors for malware and a cluster management system that monitors the operations of each cluster and controls its configuration. The cluster includes at least a broker compute node, as described below. Deployed as a physical logic unit (e.g. a network device) or as a virtual logic unit (e.g., software operating on a network device), each sensor is configured to capture network traffic, including objects, perform a preliminary analysis on the objects, and provide objects deemed “suspicious” (e.g., meet or exceed a first probability of the object under analysis being malicious) to a selected cluster for in-depth analysis of the objects. A customer may subscribe to the malware detection system in order to utilize the object evaluation services through data submissions via one or more sensors as described below.

The second subsystem of the malware detection system may further include a subscription review service, which is configured to store a portion of the subscription information (referred to as “service policy level information”) for use in selection of a cluster to analyze submitted objects and monitor operability of the selected cluster to confirm compliance with certain performance-based attributes. The performance-based attributes may pertain to any category of attribute such as certain subscription attributes (e.g., number or rate of object submissions, Quality of Service “QoS” levels guaranteed by a subscription tier, cluster availability, etc.) or certain customer-configured attributes (e.g., geographic location permissions or restrictions for compute nodes with the selected cluster in processing objects, type of remediation scheme, type of notification “alert” scheme, etc.).

According to one embodiment of the disclosure, the service policy level information includes an identifier to a customer (referred to as “Customer_ID”), received in response to a granted request to subscribe to the object evaluation service. Some or all of the service policy level information may be provided to (i) a sensor, (ii) management system or web portal associated with the sensor, and/or (iii) a data store (e.g., one or more databases) that is accessible by one or more cloud brokers, as described below. During operation, the sensor communicates with the subscription review service to enroll and gain authorized access to the malware detection system. The subscription review service further coordinates an exchange of information with the cluster management system for updating software or other logic operating within one or more compute nodes (referred to as “compute node(s)”) within the cluster(s) of the object evaluation service and/or within one or more sensors (referred to as “sensor(s)”) in communication with the malware detection system.

According to one embodiment of the disclosure, the first (cloud-based) subsystem of the malware detection system features (i) an analysis selection service and (ii) an analysis monitoring service. The analysis selection service includes logic, referred to as a “cloud broker,” which is responsible for both selecting a cluster to analyze objects that are submitted by a particular customer via a sensor and monitoring operability of the selected cluster to ensure compliance with the performance-based attributes e.g., associated with the subscription level selected by the customer. In particular, the analysis monitoring service is configured to communicate with the cluster management system to receive metadata associated with the cluster(s) operating as part of the second subsystem and/or metadata associated with compute nodes within the cluster(s). The metadata may include performance-based information (e.g., capacity, rate of analyses, number of analyses conducted, guest images utilized, etc.), derived from historical operational statistics and current status of the clusters. Based on this metadata, the analysis monitoring service generates information (referred to as “cluster selection values”) for use, at least in part, by the cloud broker in selecting a cluster to process objects from a specific sensor and determining compliance with performance and/or operation thresholds for the tier of subscription selected.

More specifically, the analysis monitoring service includes logic, referred to as a “system monitoring logic,” which is responsible for collecting metadata from the cluster management system that pertains to the operating state of (a) sensor(s) at a subscriber site, (b) cluster(s) that are part of the second subsystem, and/or (c) compute node(s) of a particular cluster or clusters. According to one embodiment of the disclosure, this metadata (referred to as “operational metadata”) may include, but is not limited or restricted to, any or all of the following: cluster-based metadata, subscriber-based metadata, and/or compute node (CN)-based metadata (when the cluster management system is monitoring cluster specific activity), as described below. The receipt of the operational metadata may occur periodically or aperiodically. Also, the operational metadata may be received in response to a query message initiated by the system monitoring logic of the analysis monitoring service (“pull” method) or may be received without any prompting by the system monitoring logic (“push” method).

Responsive to receipt of operational metadata from the cluster management system (and optionally subscription information from the subscription review service), the system monitoring logic may generate and provide cluster selection values to the cloud broker. According to one embodiment of the disclosure, a rules engine within the cloud broker includes policy and routing rules that are designed to determine cluster and/or compute node availability based, at least in part, on the cluster selection values. Hence, the cluster selection values may influence which cluster is selected by the cloud broker to handle malware analysis of an object determined to be suspicious by a sensor of a customer who subscribes to services provided by the malware detection system.

Also, the policy and routing rules may be designed to confirm compliance by the malware detection system with respect to customer requirements specified by performance-based attributes associated with the selected subscription level and/or the customer-configurable attributes contained within the service policy level information for the customer. This confirmation may be accomplished by comparing values associated with certain operational metadata to values associated with certain attributes within the service policy level information.

In response to determining that the operability of the selected cluster is not compliant with the performance-based attributes and/or customer-configurable attributes for the selected subscription level (e.g., operability falls below a prescribed number of performance thresholds, falls below any performance threshold by a certain amount or percentage, etc.), the cloud broker may issue one or more alerts in efforts to remedy non-compliance.

A first alert may include a message sent to an on-premises management system or an endpoint controlled by an administrator of the customer's network. The message may identify one or more attributes that have not been satisfied in accordance with the service policy level information, e.g., associated with the current subscription level. In some cases, non-compliance may be remedied by increasing the current subscription level to increase entitled object processing capacity. In other cases, non-compliance may be remedied by reducing the current subscription level to save money with reduced protection being provided. Where the subscription level qualifies or permits the customer to submit a number or rate of objects for analysis, the first alert may notify the administrator that the number or rate has been exceeded, and the customer is notified to increase the subscription level accordingly to address non-compliance.

A second alert may include a message directed to an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or third party hosting the object evaluation service identifying the performance issues causing non-compliance. In response to the second alert, the OEM or third party may provide a remedy by augmenting the selected cluster with more compute nodes or re-balancing workloads on the existing clusters/compute nodes (e.g., by re-enrolling the impacted sensor and/or other sensors contributing to the workload). Of course, the selected remedy may depend on what attributes have not been satisfied in accordance with the service policy level information associated with the current subscription level.

The cloud broker of the analysis selection service is configured to establish communication sessions between a sensor and a cluster, which may involve selection of a cluster (or selection of a particular compute node within that cluster) to handle analyses of suspicious objects detected by a specific sensor. The cloud broker relies on the policy and routing rules to select the pairing between the cluster and the specific sensor, where the selection of the cluster may be influenced by the cluster selection values from the system monitoring logic and/or service policy level information. The service policy level information may be provided from the specific sensor or accessible from one or more databases located within the first subsystem and/or the second subsystem using the Customer_ID or an identifier of the sensor (“Sensor_ID”).

The cloud broker may also be responsible for reporting statistical information associated with analyses of suspicious objects and/or operability of particular cluster(s), particular compute node(s) or particular sensor(s). For example, the statistical information may be provided from the cluster management system within the second subsystem. Responsive to a request by the sensor for statistical information, the cloud broker may return a first type of aggregated statistical information to the sensor. The first type of aggregated statistical information allows network administrators for the subscriber to monitor performance of the malware detection system and/or compliance with service policy level guarantees based on the paid subscription. The cloud broker may return a second type of aggregated statistical information to a destination other than the sensor (e.g., the original equipment manufacturer “OEM” of the malware detection system, a third party entity, or another entity), which may be monitoring system performance.

It is contemplated that the cloud broker may include logic that returns analysis results for a previously analyzed object when a hash value of the previously analyzed object is highly correlated (e.g., identical or substantially corresponds) to a hash value of an object requested for analysis by a subscriber. This is a “cache” concept to avoid re-analyzing previously analyzed content and mitigate a likelihood of false positives or false negatives.

According to one embodiment of the disclosure, as previously described, the second subsystem includes the subscription review service, which includes licensing logic, enrollment logic and/or security content update logic. Collectively, the subscription review service confirms sensor enrollment as well as coordinates an exchange of information for use in updating operability of the malware detection system and/or the sensors. Prior to the malware detection system analyzing a data submission (e.g., object) from or returning statistical information to a sensor, the subscription review service may be requested to authenticate the sensor to confirm that the sensor (and/or the customer associated with the sensor) is authorized to use object analysis services provided by the malware detection system.

Hence, as described below in detail, a customer may submit a license request message for a subscription with a certain tier of service (subscription level) in consideration of desired attributes (e.g., desired network traffic capacity level, number of endpoints to be protected, etc.). Some of the attributes may be configured by the customer via an interface or portal (e.g., customer selected guest image “GI” preferences based on current OS/application types, notification (alert) scheme, remediation setting preference, etc.) while other attributes may be provided implicitly from the submission of the license request message (e.g., geographic location of the sensor by Internet Protocol (IP) or Media Access Control (MAC) address, GI preferences through analysis of installed software on the endpoint, etc.). This information associated with the attributes may be stored in one or more databases directly by or via the licensing/enrollment logic, and thereafter, maintained in or accessible by the cloud broker. The information may be accessed in the database via the Customer_ID, or, since the Customer_ID may be associated with one or more enrolled sensors (and their corresponding IDs), in some embodiments, a Sensor_ID may be used to access the information.

As described herein, a “cluster” is a scalable architecture that includes at least one compute node and allows additional compute nodes to be added as increased object analysis capacity is needed. A “compute node” includes logic that is configured to analyze suspicious objects that are detected by one or more sensors deployed at a subscriber site and submitted to the compute node via the analysis selection service located within the first subsystem of the malware detection system. The level (or threshold) for suspiciousness may be customer configurable (i.e., customer can adjust the sensitivity of the analysis based on available capacity or subscription level, the number or rate of false positives/negatives, or the like) or may depend on the type of object under analysis.

For example, according to one embodiment of the disclosure, the cluster may include a plurality of compute nodes, including at least (i) a compute node that operates as an “analytic” compute node by performing a malware detection analysis on a suspicious object and (ii) a compute node that operates as a “broker” compute node to select a particular analytic compute node within the cluster to analyze the suspicious object. The above-identified compute nodes may be the same compute node (e.g., different logic in same electronic device) or different compute nodes (e.g., different electronic devices or different logic within different electronic devices). For this embodiment, an analytic compute node of the cluster obtains metadata associated with a suspicious object via a broker compute node, and the metadata is used in the retrieval of the suspicious object for threat analysis by the analytic compute node. The classification of the suspicious object, in which a determination is made whether the object is associated with a cyber-attack or not, may take into account the analyses by the sensor (sensor analysis) and/or by the compute node (cluster analysis).

According to this embodiment, as described below, a sensor may be deployed at a subscriber site to monitor and evaluate information at that site. In particular, according to this embodiment, the sensor may be configured to capture incoming information, which is copied or intercepted during transit over a network (e.g., enterprise network or a public network where the intercepted information may include, for example, webpages downloaded by a user at the subscriber site or electronic messages transmitted to an email service provider over the Internet), conduct a preliminary analysis of incoming information, and route data submissions associated with suspicious objects (e.g., the suspicious objects themselves and/or metadata of the suspicious object) to a cluster within the second subsystem for more in-depth analysis of the object. During the preliminary analysis, the sensor may monitor, track or even intelligently control the number or frequency of data submissions to the cluster. Cluster selection prompted by a sensor requesting access to the malware detection system, along with maintenance of communications between the cluster and the sensor, are handled by the analysis selection service based, at least in part, on operational metadata received from the cluster management system via the analysis monitoring service.

Physically separate from the sensor, the cluster is responsible for analyzing suspicious objects that are part of the intercepted or copied information for malicious characteristics, namely the likelihood of a suspicious object being associated with malware. Prior to this analysis, logic within the sensor and/or the analysis selection service may conduct an initial determination as to whether (i) the object has already been submitted for malware analysis and/or (ii) a malware analysis has been completed for this object. In some situations, the results of a prior malware analysis may be returned to the sensor via the first subsystem.

I. Terminology

In the following description, certain terminology is used to describe features of the invention. In certain situations, each of the terms “logic”, “logic unit,” “engine,” or “system” are representative of hardware, firmware, and/or software that is configured to perform one or more functions. As hardware, the logic (or engine or system) may include circuitry having data processing or storage functionality. Examples of such circuitry may include, but are not limited or restricted to a microprocessor, one or more processor cores, a programmable gate array, a microcontroller, an application specific integrated circuit, wireless receiver, transmitter and/or transceiver circuitry, semiconductor memory, or combinatorial logic.

Alternatively, or in combination with the hardware circuitry described above, the logic (or logic unit or engine or system) may be software in the form of one or more software modules. The software modules may include an executable application, an application programming interface (API), a subroutine, a function, a procedure, an applet, a servlet, a routine, source code, a shared library/dynamic load library, or one or more instructions. The software module(s) may be stored in any type of a suitable non-transitory storage medium, or transitory storage medium (e.g., electrical, optical, acoustical or other form of propagated signals such as carrier waves, infrared signals, or digital signals). Examples of non-transitory storage medium may include, but are not limited or restricted to a programmable circuit; a semiconductor memory; non-persistent storage such as volatile memory (e.g., any type of random access memory “RAM”); persistent storage such as non-volatile memory (e.g., read-only memory “ROM”, power-backed RAM, flash memory, phase-change memory, etc.), a solid-state drive, hard disk drive, an optical disc drive, or a portable memory device. As firmware, the executable code may be stored in persistent storage.

The term “computerized” generally represents that any corresponding operations are conducted by hardware in combination with software and/or firmware.

The term “message” generally refers to information in a prescribed format and transmitted in accordance with a suitable delivery protocol such as HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol); HTTPS (HTTP Secure); SSH (Secure Shell); SSH over SSL (SSH over Secure Socket Layer); Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), iMESSAGE, Instant Message Access Protocol (IMAP), or another delivery protocol. Hence, each message may be in the form of one or more packets, frames, or any other series of bits having the prescribed format.

The term “cloud-based” generally refers to a hosted service that is remotely located from a data source and configured to receive, store and process data delivered by the data source over a network. Cloud-based systems may be configured to operate as a public cloud-based service, a private cloud-based service or a hybrid cloud-based service. A “public cloud-based service” may include a third-party provider that supplies one or more servers to host multi-tenant services. Examples of a public cloud-based service include Amazon Web Services® (AWS®), Microsoft® Azure™, and Google® Compute Engine™ as examples. In contrast, a “private” cloud-based service may include one or more servers that host services provided to a single subscriber (enterprise) and a hybrid cloud-based service may be a combination of certain functionality from a public cloud-based service and a private cloud-based service.

As briefly described above, the term “malware” may be broadly construed as any code, communication or activity that initiates or furthers a malicious attack (hereinafter, “cyber-attack”). Malware may prompt or cause unauthorized, anomalous, unintended and/or unwanted behaviors or operations constituting a security compromise of information infrastructure. For instance, malware may correspond to a type of malicious computer code that, as an illustrative example, executes an exploit to take advantage of a vulnerability in a network, network device or software, for example, to gain unauthorized access, harm or co-opt operation of a network device or misappropriate, modify or delete data. Alternatively, as another illustrative example, malware may correspond to information (e.g., executable code, script(s), data, command(s), etc.) that is designed to cause a network device to experience anomalous (unexpected or undesirable) behaviors. The anomalous behaviors may include a communication-based anomaly or an execution-based anomaly, which, for example, could (1) alter the functionality of a network device executing application software in an atypical manner; (2) alter the functionality of the network device executing that application software without any malicious intent; and/or (3) provide unwanted functionality which may be generally acceptable in another context.

In certain instances, the terms “compare,” comparing,” “comparison,” or other tenses thereof generally mean determining if a match (e.g., a certain level of correlation) is achieved between two items where one of the items may include a particular pattern.

Both the term “node” and the term “network device” may be construed as an electronic device or software with at least data processing functionality and perhaps connectivity to a network. The network may be a public network such as the Internet or a private network such as a wireless data telecommunication network, wide area network, a type of local area network (LAN), or a combination of networks. Examples of a node or network device may include, but are not limited or restricted to any type of computer (e.g., desktop, laptop, tablet, netbook, server, mainframe, etc.), a mobile phone, a data transfer device (e.g., router, repeater, portable mobile hotspot, etc.), a wireless interface (e.g., radio transceiver or tuner, a firewall, etc.), or software or other logic type. Illustrative examples of a node or network device may include a sensor or a compute node (e.g., hardware and/or software that operates to receive information, and when applicable, perform malware analysis on that information). Also, an “endpoint” is a network device deployed at a subscriber site with access to a network to which a sensor may be communicatively coupled to monitor network traffic as well as incoming traffic (e.g., email) destined for the endpoint.

The term “transmission medium” may be construed as a physical or logical communication path between two or more nodes. For instance, as a physical communication path, wired and/or wireless interconnects in the form of electrical wiring, optical fiber, cable, bus trace, or a wireless channel using infrared, radio frequency (RF), may be used.

The term “data submission” includes metadata associated with an object that is determined to be suspicious and may be subjected to additional malware analysis. In addition to the metadata, the data submission may include one or more objects provided concurrently with or subsequent to the metadata. The term “object” generally relates to content (or a reference for accessing such content) having a logical structure or organization that enables it to be classified for purposes of malware analysis. The content may include an executable (e.g., an application, program, code segment, a script, dynamic link library “dll” or any file in a format that can be directly executed by a computer such as a file with an “.exe” extension, etc.), a non-executable (e.g., a storage file; any document such as a Portable Document Format “PDF” document; a word processing document such as Word® document; an electronic mail “email” message, web page, etc.), or simply a collection of related data.

The object and/or metadata may be acquired from information in transit (e.g., a plurality of packets), such as information being transmitted over a network or copied from the transmitted information for example, or may be acquired from information at rest (e.g., data bytes from a storage medium). Examples of different types of objects may include a data element, one or more flows, or a data element within a flow itself. A “flow” generally refers to related packets that are received, transmitted, or exchanged within a communication session while a “data element” generally refers to a plurality of packets carrying related payloads (e.g., a single webpage provided as multiple packet payloads received over a network). The data element may be an executable or a non-executable, as described above.

Finally, the terms “or” and “and/or” as used herein are to be interpreted as inclusive or meaning any one or any combination. As an example, “A, B or C” or “A, B and/or C” mean “any of the following: A; B; C; A and B; A and C; B and C; A, B and C.” An exception to this definition will occur only when a combination of elements, functions, steps or acts are in some way inherently mutually exclusive.

As this invention is susceptible to embodiments of many different forms, it is intended that the present disclosure is to be considered as an example of the principles of the invention and not intended to limit the invention to the specific embodiments shown and described.

II. General Architecture

Referring to FIG. 1, an exemplary block diagram of an illustrative embodiment of a subscription-based, malware detection system 100 is shown. Herein, the malware detection system 100 is communicatively coupled to one or more sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) (M≥1). The sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) may be located at a subscriber site 112 (e.g., located at any part of an enterprise network infrastructure at a single facility or at a plurality of facilities), or as shown, the sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) may be located at different subscriber sites 112 and 114. As illustrated, the malware detection system 100 may be separated geographically from any of the subscriber sites 112 and 114.

According to one embodiment of the disclosure, the malware detection system 100 includes a first subsystem 130 and a second subsystem 160. As shown in FIG. 1, the first subsystem 130 of the malware detection system 100 may be hosted as part of a public cloud-based service. The second subsystem 160 of the malware detection system 100 may be a private cloud-based object evaluation service operating as an analysis system, which is hosted by a cybersecurity provider or another entity different than the subscriber. Having a high degree of deployment flexibility, in the alternative, the malware detection system 100 can also be deployed as a fully public cloud-based service, as a fully private cloud-based service, or as a hybrid cloud-based service. This flexibility provides optimal scaling with controlled capital expense as well as the ability to control location(s) of deployments to satisfy governmental requirements, e.g., as to sensitive information (e.g., Personally Identifiable Information).

In FIG. 1, a sensor 110 ₁ may be deployed as a physical logic unit or as a virtual logic unit (software) installed on a network device. When deployed as a physical logic unit, the sensor 110 ₁ is identified by a sensor identifier (“Sensor_ID), which may be based on the media access control (MAC) address or another unique identifier (e.g., serial number) assigned to the sensor 110 ₁. However, when deployed as a virtual logic unit, the sensor 110 ₁ may be preloaded with an activation code, which includes the Sensor_ID along with other credentials for communications with the malware detection system 100.

As further shown in FIG. 1, the sensors 110 ₁-110 ₂ may be positioned at separate ingress points along the subscribing customer's network or subnetwork, or may be positioned in close proximity to one another, perhaps sharing the same hardware (e.g., power source, memory, hardware processor, etc.). For certain deployments, where the sensor 110 ₁-110 ₂ are used as edge network devices for subnetworks, sensors may be used to monitor lateral infection between the subnetworks at the subscriber site 112. The sensors may serve as email proxies to receive email traffic being sent to computing assets protected by the customer in order to perform a security analysis.

When authenticated to access an object evaluation service 180 provided by the malware detection system 100 and a communication session to a selected cluster within the second subsystem 160 has been established, as described below, a sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₁) may conduct a preliminary analysis of data within an object 120 (e.g., data within a header or body of one or more packets or frames within monitored network traffic) to determine whether that object 120 is suspicious. The object 120 may include a portion of information (content) that is intercepted or copied from information being routed over a network. The object 120 may be “suspicious” upon detecting (i) the object 120 is sourced by or directed to a particular network device identified in a “blacklist” or (ii) the data within the object 120 features a suspicious data pattern. Hence, the preliminary analysis, in effect, controls the number and/or frequency of suspicious objects made available by the sensor 110 ₁ for in-depth malware analysis by a selected cluster within the second subsystem 160. In some embodiments, all objects of a specific type of object (e.g., emails) are regarded as suspicious and sent for in-depth malware analysis, with the results of the preliminary analysis being available for used in the final determination of whether the object is associated with a cyber-attack.

Referring still to FIG. 1, with respect to the malware detection system 100, an analysis selection service 140 hosted within the first subsystem 130 is responsible for selecting a particular cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) of one of more clusters 185 ₁-185 _(N) (N≥1), which is deployed within the second subsystem 160, to perform malware analysis of objects provided by a specific sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₁). The analysis selection service 140 selects the cluster 185 ₁ based on an analysis of the service policy level information 127 and/or a portion of the operational metadata 150 (referred to as “cluster selection values 157”) operating as inputs.

For example, according to one embodiment of the disclosure, upon receiving the cluster selection values 157 and/or the service policy level information 127, a rules engine 142 operates in accordance with policy and routing rules to select the cluster 185 ₁, where the operational metadata associated with the selected cluster 185 ₁ indicates that the cluster 185 ₁ is able to satisfy performance or operation criterion set forth by subscription attributes and/or customer-configured attributes within the service policy level information 127. The policy and routing rules utilized by the rules engine 142 may be static, dynamic (modifiable and updateable) or a hybrid where some of the policy/routing rules are static while others are dynamic. For instance, the policy and routing rules of the rules engine 142 may be preloaded, but some of its rules may be modified or replaced over time. The frequency of the rule modifications may depend, at least in part, on results of prior malware detection by cybersecurity providers, changes in the cyber-threat landscape, and/or the types, targets, and techniques used in recent or potential cyber-attacks.

Hence, the analysis selection service 140 is configured to select the cluster 185 ₁ to perform malware analyses on suspicious objects submitted by a sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₁) based, at least in part, on the service policy level information 127 within an analysis request message 125 and the operational metadata 150. The operational metadata 150 is received from the cluster management system 190 deployed within the second subsystem 160 via analysis monitoring service 145. As a result, the analysis selection service 140 controls the formation and maintenance of a communication session 155 between the particular cluster 185 ₁ of the object evaluation service 180 and the sensor 110 ₁ requesting the communication session 155.

After the communication session 155 has been established, logic within the analysis selection service 140 is configured to provide information associated with a suspicious object from the requesting sensor 110 ₁ to the selected cluster 185 ₁ within the object evaluation service 180 and to return results of a malware analysis on that suspicious object back to the requesting sensor 110 ₁. This logic is identified as a “cloud broker” 610 in FIG. 6A.

As shown, the analysis monitoring service 145 receives, in a periodic or aperiodic manner, the operational metadata 150 from the second subsystem 160 (e.g., cluster management system 190). As shown, the operational metadata 150 may be received in response to a query message initiated by the analysis monitoring service 145 (“pull” method) or may be received without any prompting by the analysis monitoring service 145 (“push” method). A portion of the operational metadata 150 or information produced based at least in part on a portion of the operational metadata 150 (referred to as “cluster selection values 157”) is made available to the rules engine 142 within the analysis selection service 140.

According to one embodiment of the disclosure, the cluster selection values 157 corresponds to information that (i) pertains to rule-based parameters utilized by the policy and routing rules and (ii) is generated from the operational metadata 150. As an example, the operational metadata 150 may include cluster queue size or queue length, cluster or compute node workload, cluster or compute node geographic location, and/or software profiles (e.g., guest images) supported for processing of the suspicious object 120 within one or more virtual machines hosted by the compute nodes within the cluster. Based on this example, the cluster selection values 157 may be values generated from the metadata (e.g., current queue length and/or cluster workload) that, when applied to the policy and routing rules controlling operation of the rules engine 142, identify which cluster or clusters are available to support another sensor and/or their level of availability. As an illustrative example, where the policy and routing rules include a rule that requires a cluster to have 30% queue capacity to service another sensor and the metadata identifies that the queue size is fifty storage elements and the current queue length is 15 storage elements, the cluster selection values 157 would identify that the cluster has 30% (15/50) capacity.

From other information (e.g., software profiles or geographic location), the cluster selection values 157 may be values that further refine the cluster selection process by identifying which cluster or clusters should be considered or precluded from consideration for data submissions involving a particular type of object. From still other information (e.g., compute node workload), the cluster selection values 157 may be values that further determine what broker compute node is to be selected for a particular cluster. Additionally, or in the alternative, the cluster selection values 157 may include or may be based on information associated with one or more sensors 110 ₁, . . . , and/or 110 _(N) based on prior communication sessions by the sensor(s) 110 ₁, . . . , and/or 110 _(N) such as sensor activity (e.g., number of submissions, amount of analysis time performed on objects by the particular sensor, number of malicious object detected for a particular sensor, or the like).

As described herein, the following operations are performed before the sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₁) is able to provide data for analysis (sometimes referred to as a “data submission 124”) to the malware detection system 100: (a) sensor 110 ₁ obtains service policy level information 127 that includes credentials such as the Customer_ID, user name, password, and/or keying material, as well as other parameters such as quality of service “QoS” information applicable to the Customer_ID that may specify, for example, the amount of time allocated per object analysis or any other factors that provide different levels of analysis or responsiveness per the subscription for the customer; (b) sensor 110 ₁ is authenticated to access services provided by the malware detection system 100 using at least some of the service policy level information 127; (c) selection of a cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) to handle malware analyses for the sensor 110 ₁ (based on incoming cluster selection values 157 and at least a portion of the service policy level information 127; and (d) communications with the cluster 185 ₁ via the communication session 155 have been established.

According to one embodiment of the disclosure, the data submission 124 may include the object 120 and/or metadata 122 associated with the object 120. Herein, according to this embodiment, the data submission 124 includes the metadata 122 while the object 120 is temporarily stored by the sensor 110 ₁ and uploaded at a later time. For instance, the sensor 110 ₁ may later upload the object 120 to the object evaluation service 180 via the analysis selection service 140 for malware analysis. This upload may occur once the malware detection system 100 confirms, based on analysis of the metadata 122, that (a) the object 120 has not been analyzed previously and (b) a particular compute node within a selected cluster is ready to analyze the object 120. Alternatively, it is contemplated that the sensor 110 ₁ may concurrently upload the object 120 and its corresponding metadata 122 to the malware detection system 100 for processing.

As an optional service, an accounting and license enforcement service 143, separate from the licensing and enrollment services offered by the subscription review service 170, may be implemented in the first subsystem 130 and configured to monitor data submissions by the subscriber and account for all of the analysis and actions undertaken that exceed the terms of a license (subscription). The software associated with this service may further implement a “pay-as-you-go” licensing feature, which keeps track of all of the data submissions by a subscriber and charges based on usage of the malware detection system 100. This licensing feature provides for pre-payment of some reserved object analysis capacity, potentially at a cost savings.

Additionally, the accounting and license enforcement service 143 may be configured to confirm the current subscription status assigned to the customer associated with the sensor 110 ₁ that is attempting to upload the object 120 into the malware detection system 100 for analysis. This confirmation may be accomplished, for example, by accessing one or more databases 175 within the malware detection system 100 (e.g., within the second subsystem 160, within the first subsystem 130 such as within a portion of the subscription review service 170 hosted by the first subsystem 130, etc.) using the Sensor_ID or the Customer_ID provided by the sensor 110 ₁ as an index to obtain information pertaining to the customer's subscription. Alternatively, this confirmation may be accomplished by using the Sensor_ID to determine the Customer_ID within a Sensor_ID-Customer_ID mapping, and thereafter, conducting a database lookup using the Customer_ID.

More specifically, the confirmation of the current subscription status may involve a first determination as to whether the customer has an active subscription to the malware detection system 100. If the customer does not possess an active subscription to the malware detection system 100, the sensor 110 ₁ may be precluded from establishing a communication session and uploading information into the malware detection system 100 for analysis. If so, a second determination is conducted to access information, including service policy level information 127, which pertains to the customer's subscription.

The service policy level information 127 may include subscription attributes (e.g., subscription tier, QoS thresholds, permissions, access control information, details on cluster availability such as a listed default cluster, cluster selection ordering or preferences, cluster restrictions, etc.) and/or customer-configured attributes (e.g., geographic location permissions or restrictions for compute nodes in processing objects for the sensor 110 ₁, type of remediation identified by a remediation settings, notification scheme, etc.), or the like. Of course, it is contemplated that factory set attributes (e.g., default cluster, permissions, etc.), and/or operationally dynamically generated attributes that are dynamic based on past historical operations may be provided as part of the service policy level information 127 as well. It is contemplated that an OEM or third party hosting the object evaluation service may configure the service so that an attribute may be categorized as a subscription, customer-configured, factory set, or operationally dynamic attribute, where some customer-configured attributes allow customers to tailor operability that is not offered by the subscription level. The OEM or third party can decide which attribute or attributes should be configured in conjunction with which subscription level.

Additionally, the first subsystem 130 is configured to generate and transmit statistical information 192, which may be prompted in response to a management query message 194 (as shown) or provided without being in response to signaling from the subscriber site 112. The management query message 194 may correspond to a request for data that is directed to the operability of a particular sensor or the cluster(s). For instance, the statistical information 192 may be provided to a third party node or reporting logic deployed to operate as part of an on-premises (subscriber-based) management system (see system 606 of FIG. 6A) or a centralized management system (not shown) accessible by more than one subscriber site.

The on-premises management system 606, in some embodiments, is also responsible for receiving customer selections of available configurable attributes, as elsewhere described. As shown in FIG. 6A, the on-premises management system 606 includes a user interface (e.g., an interactive user interface) 606 a, a network interface 606 b, and may be implemented as software stored in memory 606 c that, which, when executed by one or more hardware processors 606 d, performs the functionality described herein.

Referring back to FIG. 1, according to one embodiment of the disclosure, the second subsystem 160 includes the subscription review service 170 and the object evaluation service 180. Herein, the subscription review service 170 may be configured to enable the sensor 110 ₁ to obtain the service policy level information 127 through licensing services, authenticate the sensor 110 ₁ through sensor enrollment services as well as coordinate an exchange of information for use in updating operability of the malware detection system 100 and/or sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M). These authentication operations 172 are described below and illustrated in greater detail in FIGS. 6A-6B.

As shown, the subscription review service 170 is deployed within the second subsystem 160. However, it is contemplated that the subscription review service 170 may be deployed within the first subsystem 130 or partially within both subsystems 130 and 160. Furthermore, although not shown, the subscription review service 170 may be communicatively coupled to the analysis selection service 140 and/or the analysis monitoring service 145 to provide subscription information that may adjust operability of one or both of these services (e.g., increase or decrease QoS levels, decrease or increase analysis times, decrease or increase cluster availability, etc.).

The object evaluation service 180 includes one or more clusters 185 ₁-185 _(N) (N≥1). Each cluster 185 ₁-185 _(N) may be configured to conduct an analysis of a suspicious object (e.g., object 120) provided by one of the sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) that is enrolled to the subscription-based malware detection system 100. As described above, each cluster 185 i, . . . , or 185 _(N) is a scalable architecture, which includes at least one compute node in which additional compute nodes may be added as needed to handle an increased number of object analyses caused by increased network traffic at a subscriber site (e.g., subscriber site 112).

According to one embodiment, the cluster 185 ₁ includes a plurality of compute nodes, including (i) one or more compute nodes 186 each operating as a “broker” compute node and (ii) one or more compute nodes 187 each operating as an “analytic” compute node. Herein, a broker compute node 186 may be configured to determine, from received metadata 122 associated with the data submission 124 (e.g., hash value for the object 120), whether the suspicious object 120 has been previously processed by the malware detection system 100. If not, the suspicious object 120 is temporarily stored and is subsequently analyzed by at least one of the analytic compute node(s) 187 to determine whether the suspicious object 120 is associated with malware. The received metadata 122 may be used in the retrieval of the suspicious object 120. If the suspicious object 120 has been previously processed, however, the results of the prior analysis may be reported by the broker compute node 186 to the sensor 110 ₁ via the first subsystem 130. In some embodiments, the sensor 110 ₁ may provide the results to the on-premises management system 606 of FIG. 6A.

Alternatively, in lieu of the broker compute node 186 determining whether the suspicious object 120 has been previously processed, the first subsystem 130 may include logic that returns results from previously analyzed objects upon detecting a high correlation between metadata associated with the suspicious object 120 and metadata associated with a previously analyzed object. This logic may be implemented to avoid unnecessary analysis to improve response time and mitigate potential false positives or false negatives.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of logic implemented within a physical deployment of the sensor 110 ₁ in communication with the malware detection system 100 of FIG. 1 is shown. According to this embodiment of the disclosure, the sensor 110 ₁ comprises one or more hardware processors 200 (generally referred to as “processor”), a non-transitory storage medium 210, and one or more network interfaces 220 (generally referred to as “network interface”). These components are at least partially encased in a housing 230, which may be made entirely or partially of a rigid material (e.g., hard plastic, metal, glass, composites, or any combination thereof) that protects these components from environmental conditions.

In an alternative virtual device deployment, the sensor 110 ₁ may be implemented entirely as software that may be loaded into a node or network device (as shown) and operated in cooperation with an operating system (“OS”) running on the node. For this implementation, the architecture of the software-based sensor 110 ₁ includes software modules that, when executed by a processor, perform functions directed to certain functionality of logic 240 illustrated within the storage medium 210, as described below.

The processor 200 is a multi-purpose, processing component that is configured to execute logic 240 maintained within the non-transitory storage medium 210 operating as a data store. As described below, the logic 240 may include, but is not limited or restricted to, (i) subscription control logic 250, (ii) preliminary analysis logic 260, (iii) metadata extraction logic 270, (iv) notification logic 290 and/or (v) cluster selection logic 295. One example of processor 200 includes an Intel® (x86) central processing unit (CPU) with an instruction set architecture. Alternatively, processor 200 may include another type of CPUs, a digital signal processor, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array, or any other hardware component with data processing capability.

According to one embodiment of the disclosure, the sensor 110 ₁ may include subscription control logic 250 that controls the signaling (handshaking) between licensing logic 640 and enrollment logic 650 of FIG. 6A. Such signaling enables the sensor 110 ₁ to acquire credentials that are part of the service policy level information 127 of FIG. 1 (e.g., Customer_ID, username, password, keying material, etc.) as well as an uniform resource locator (URL) or other communication address for accessing the analysis selection service 140 of FIG. 1 and establishing communications with at least one cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) of the available clusters 185 ₁-185 _(N). Additionally, the subscription control logic 250 may maintain information associated with a subscription expiration time that, if not extended through renewal, disables communications with the assigned cluster 185 ₁ and/or signals a subscriber that renewal payments are due to continue the subscription to the malware detection system 100 (or upgrade to a more robust service policy level).

As shown, the network interface 220 is configured to receive incoming data 235 propagating over a network, including the metadata 122 and the object 120. The incoming data 235 may be received directly from the network or via a network tap or Switch Port Analyzer (SPAN) port, also known as a mirror port, provided by the sensor 110 ₁. Processed by processor 200, the preliminary analysis logic 260 may conduct an analysis of at least a portion of the incoming data 235, such as the object 120 for example, to determine whether the object 120 is suspicious. Furthermore, the metadata extraction logic 270, during such processing, may extract metadata 122 from the incoming data 235 and assign an object identifier 275 to correspond to both the metadata 122 and the suspicious object 120. The object identifier 275 may be unique among the clusters 185 ₁-185 _(N) (referred to as “universally unique identifier” or “UUID” 275).

The metadata 122 and UUID 275 may be stored in a metadata data store 280. The suspicious object 120 and UUID 275 may be stored in a content data store 285. The content data store 285 may be part of the non-transitory storage medium 210 of the sensor 110 ₁. It is contemplated, however, that the content data store 285 may be located externally from the sensor 110 ₁.

The sensor 110 ₁ further includes notification logic 290, which is responsible for handling communications 292 with the selected cluster 185 ₁ via the analysis selection service 140 of FIG. 1. Such communications 292 may include (i) analysis results or (ii) information that signifies (a) the suspicious object 120 has already been analyzed or (b) a timeout event has been detected for the metadata 122 that originated from the sensor 110 ₁, where a “timeout event” denotes that the suspicious object 120 has not been analyzed by the object evaluation service 180 of FIG. 1 within a time allotted by the service policy level information 127 associated with the subscription for the customer or by the sensor 110 ₁.

Operating in combination with subscription control logic 250 and/or preliminary analysis logic 260, the cluster selection logic 295 is adapted to select, based on the service policy level information 127 associated with the subscription for the customer, between on-premises cluster (or malware detection system) that resides on the same enterprise network as sensor 110 ₁ (not shown) or an off-premises cluster within malware detection system 100 of FIG. 1. In this regard, the service policy level information 127 may have a customer-configurable attribute that specifies customer preferences regarding on-premises or off-premises cluster selection. Hence, depending on the selected default cluster, the on-premises cluster may be deployed to provide extra capacity when malware analysis thresholds established for cloud-based analyses allowed in accordance with the customer's subscription level have been exceeded.

Alternatively, the off-premises cluster may be deployed to provide extra capacity when malware analysis thresholds provided by the on-premises clusters have been exceeded. It is contemplated that routing decisions for the metadata 122 to either (i) on-premises cluster or (ii) off-premises cluster via the analysis selection service 140 may be based on any number of factors. These factors may include, but are not limited or restricted to object type (e.g., portable document format “PDF” objects are directed to an on-premises cluster and binaries are directed to off-premise cluster); client type (e.g., objects extracted from network traffic originating from certain customers, e.g., governmental agencies are directed to an on-premises cluster while objects extracted from network traffic originating from other governmental agencies are directed to an off-premises cluster); capacity (e.g., objects are directed to an off-premises cluster until a capacity (or subscription) threshold reached); and/or network security level (e.g., objects extracted from network traffic over protected subnetworks are directed to an on-premises cluster while objects extracted from network traffic over unprotected subnetworks are directed to an off-premises cluster).

Referring now to FIG. 3, an exemplary embodiment of logic implemented within the cluster 185 ₁ of FIG. 1 is shown. The cluster 185 ₁ comprises a plurality of compute nodes 300 ₁-300 _(P) (P≥1), which are communicatively coupled to a distributed queue 310 (e.g., a logical representation of the collective memory formed by queue memories for each cluster 185 ₁-185 _(N)) over a first network 315. Each compute node (e.g., compute node 300 ₁) may feature an analysis coordination system 320 ₁ and an object analysis system 340 ₁. As shown in FIG. 4, analysis coordination system 320 ₁ may be activated or deactivated, such as activation or deactivation of a control line 420 by processor 400, where the compute node 300 ₁ operates as a “broker” compute node when the analysis coordination system 320 ₁ is activated or operates only as an “analytic” compute node when the analysis coordination system 320 ₁ is deactivated (e.g., compute nodes 300 ₃ and 300 ₄). As an alternative embodiment, it is contemplated that a “broker” compute node may have a logical architecture different than an “analytic” compute node. For example, a broker compute node may be configured with only an analysis coordination system. An analytic compute node may be configured with only an object analysis system.

According to exemplary embodiment of FIG. 3, sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) are communicatively coupled to one or more broker compute nodes (e.g., compute node 300 ₁ and compute node 300 ₂) of the first cluster 185 ₁ via analysis selection service 140 of FIG. 1. Any of the analysis coordination systems 320 ₁ and 320 ₂ (e.g., system 320 ₁) may be selected by the analysis selection service 140 to receive metadata 122 from any of the sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) (e.g., sensor 110 ₁) for storage within the distributed queue 310. The metadata 122 may be retrieved by an object analysis system 340 ₁-340 ₄ that is available for analyzing the suspicious object 120 associated with the metadata 122 for malware.

As further shown in FIG. 3, according to this embodiment of the disclosure, the difference between the “broker” compute nodes 300 ₁ and 300 ₂ and the “analytic” compute nodes 300 ₃ and 300 ₄ is whether or not the analysis coordination systems have been deactivated. Herein, for the “broker” compute nodes 300 ₁ and 300 ₂, analysis coordination systems 320 ₁ and 320 ₂ have been activated while the analysis coordination systems (not shown) for compute nodes 300 ₃ and 300 ₄ have been deactivated. It is noted, however, that all of the compute nodes 300 ₁-300 ₄ within the same cluster 185 ₁ feature an object analysis system 340 ₁-340 ₄, respectively. Each of these object analysis systems 340 ₁-340 ₄ includes logic that is capable of conducting an in-depth malware analysis of the object suspicious 140 upon determining to have sufficient processing capability.

More specifically, each object analysis system 340 ₁-340 ₄, when determined to have sufficient processing capability or otherwise determined to have suitable analytical capabilities to meet the required analysis (including that for the particular object and that which satisfies the service policy level information 127 associated with the subscription for the customer), accesses the queue 310 to obtain metadata 122 associated with the suspicious object 120 awaiting malware analysis. For example, during operation, the object analysis system 340 ₁ may periodically and/or aperiodically (e.g., in response to completion of a prior malware analysis) access the queue 310 and obtain the metadata 122 associated with the suspicious object 120. The metadata stored in the queue 310 may be prioritized for removal and subsequent analysis of their corresponding objects. For example, the prioritization of the queue 310 may be in accordance with object type (e.g., metadata associated with an object of a first type is queued at a higher priority than metadata associated with an object of a second type). As another example, the prioritization of the queue 310 may be in accordance with the service policy level assigned to the subscriber, namely metadata associated with an object submitted by a subscriber at a first service policy level (e.g., first QoS level) is queued at a higher priority than metadata associated with an object submitted by a subscriber at a second service policy level.

Upon retrieval of the metadata 122 and based on at least a portion of the metadata 122, the object analysis system 340 ₁ is able to determine the storage location of the suspicious object 120. Thereafter, the object analysis system 340 ₁ may retrieve the suspicious object 120. The suspicious object 120 may be stored in the sensor 110 ₁, in the compute node 300 ₁, or in an external network device (not shown) that may be accessed via the analysis selection service 140 of FIG. 1.

Upon receipt of the suspicious object 120, the object analysis system 340 ₁ conducts an in-depth malware analysis, namely any combination of behavior (dynamic) analysis, static analysis, or object emulation in order to determine a second level of likelihood (probability) of the suspicious object 120 being associated with malware. Such operations may involve execution of the suspicious object 120 within a virtual machine that is configured with one or more software profiles (e.g., one or more software components including operating system, application(s), and/or plug-in(s)) that allows the virtual machine to execute the suspicious object 120 and monitor behaviors of the virtual machine, including any of the software components. The second level of likelihood is at least equal to and likely exceeding (in probability, in computed score, etc.) a first level of likelihood. For example, the first level of likelihood may be expressed as a probability that exceeds a first threshold to find that the object 120 is suspicious and the second level of likelihood exceeds a second, higher threshold to find that the object is likely malicious and a cyber-attack is likely in process.

As an illustrative example, the analysis coordination system 320 ₁ may be selected by the analysis selection service 140 of FIG. 1 to receive the metadata 122 associated with the suspicious object 120 and provide information, which may include some or all of the metadata 122, to the queue 310. Thereafter, the analysis coordination system 320 ₁ has no involvement in the routing of such metadata to any of the object analysis systems 340 ₁-340 ₄ of the compute nodes 300 ₁-300 ₄. Instead, an object analysis system (e.g., object analysis system 340 ₃) having sufficient processing capability and capacity to handle a deeper level analysis of the suspicious object 120 may fetch the metadata 122 that is stored in the queue 310 and subsequently fetch the suspicious object 120 based, at least in part, on a portion of the metadata 122.

In summary, as shown in FIGS. 5A-5B, while referencing FIGS. 1-4, the malware detection system 100 is configured to communicate with one or more sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M), where each sensor 110 ₁-110 _(M) is configured to receive information that includes at least metadata 122 and a corresponding object 120 for malware analysis (block 500). The malware detection system 100 receives a license request message from the customer via a sensor, and in response to granting of the license request, the service policy level information associated with the customer is stored and accessible by the analysis selection service 140 within the malware detection system 100 (blocks 502 and 504).

Prior to forwarding a portion of the information to the second subsystem 160 for malware analysis, a sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₁) may complete its enrollment as an analysis logic for a subscriber (customer) of the subscription-based malware detection system 100, as described in reference to FIG. 6A (block 505). This enrollment scheme may involve a submission of credentials (e.g. Sensor_ID, Customer_ID, username, and/or password, etc.) to the subscription review service 170 for retrieval of information for accessing the analysis selection service 140 as illustrated in FIG. 6A (e.g., URL for accessing the cloud broker 610, etc.).

The analysis selection service 140 utilizes both the service policy level information 127 provided as part of or accessible based on information in the analysis request message 125 and the cluster selection values 157 to establish a communication session (e.g., tunnel) between the sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₁) and a selected cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) of the second subsystem 160, as illustrated in FIG. 6B (blocks 510, 515, 520, 525 & 530). As described herein, the cluster selection values 157 may correspond to information that pertains to rule-based parameters for policy and routing rules of the rules engine 142, and the cluster selection values 157 are generated from the operational metadata 150 acquired from the cluster management system 190 by the analysis monitoring service 145 and the service policy level information 127 associated with the subscription for the customer. In some implementations, the service policy level information 127 may be at a per-sensor granularity rather than a per-customer level. The cluster selection values 157 may be used in the selection of the particular cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) and/or a compute node (e.g., compute node 300 ₁) within that particular cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) for analyzing objects from the sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₁).

As illustrated examples, the cluster selection values 157 relied upon for selection of the cluster (and/or compute node within the selected cluster) may pertain to values that collectively identify, when applied to policy and routing rules of the rules engine 142, what cluster or clusters have sufficient resources to support additional data submissions from a sensor. For example, the cluster selection values 157 may include values directed to cluster workload and/or cluster capacity. The cluster workload may be determined based, at least in part, on utilization levels of each of the compute nodes (e.g., compute nodes 750 ₁-750 _(P)) within that cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁). The cluster capacity may be based, at least in part, on the distributed queue size for each cluster 185 ₁-185 _(N) along with its current queue length (i.e., amount of queue (i.e., number of queue entries) that is not storing pertinent metadata). Additionally, or in the alternative, the cluster selection values 157 may include values directed to software profiles or geographic location of the sensor and/or cluster, that, when applied by the rules engine 142, may be used to determine which cluster or clusters is best suited for supporting the sensor (e.g., clusters that are geographically close to the sensor may be preferred for reduced transmission latency) and/or best satisfy the service policy level information (attributes) of the subscription for the customer.

The sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₁) receives incoming information for malware analysis. Specifically, the metadata extraction logic 270 of the sensor 110 ₁ separates the metadata 122 from the object 120. Thereafter, the preliminary analysis logic 260 conducts an analysis to determine whether the object 120 is suspicious (e.g., meets a first prescribed level of likelihood that the object 120 is associated with malware). This preliminary analysis may include one or more checks (real-time analyses) being conducted on the metadata 122 and/or object 120 without execution of the object 120. Illustrative examples of the checks may include, but are not limited or restricted to the following: (i) bit pattern comparisons of content forming the metadata 122 or object 120 with pre-stored bit patterns to uncover (a) deviations in messaging practices (e.g., non-compliance in communication protocols, message formats, and/or payload parameters including size), (b) presence of content within the object 120 that is highly susceptible to or widely used by perpetrators for cyber-attacks, and/or (c) prior submission via the sensor 110 ₁ of certain types of objects, and/or (ii) comparison between a representation of the object 120 (e.g., bit pattern representation as a hash of the object 120 or portions of the object 120) and stored representations of previously analyzed objects.

Prior to conducting an analysis to determine whether the object 120 is suspicious, it is contemplated that the preliminary analysis logic 260 within the sensor 110 ₁ may determine whether a prior preliminary (or in-depth malware) analysis has been conducted on the object 120. In some instances, such as repeated benign or malicious objects or when a prior submission has recently occurred and such analysis has not yet completed, the sensor 110 ₁ may discontinue further analysis of the object 120, especially when the prior preliminary (or in-depth malware) analysis has determined that the object 120 is benign (e.g., not malicious) or malicious (e.g., determined to have some association with malware) through one or more of the above-described checks. For some repeated benign or malicious objects, the sensor 110 ₁ may simply report the results from the prior analysis. However, where the object 120 is an URL or another object type, especially an object with dynamically changing data as in URLs or documents with an embedded URL, the sensor 110 ₁ may routinely supply the metadata 122 to its assigned broker compute node via the analysis selection service 140.

Herein, the metadata 122 may be an aggregate of metadata retrieved from the incoming data 235 of FIG. 2 along with additional metadata associated with the sensor 110 ₁ itself. The metadata 122 is provided to one of the broker compute nodes (e.g., compute node 300 ₁) of the cluster 185 ₁ that is assigned by the analysis selection service 140 to conduct an in-depth malware analysis of a suspicious object to be subsequently submitted by the sensor 110 ₁ (block 535). A portion of the metadata 122 may be used by an analytic compute node to retrieve the suspicious object 120 associated with the metadata 122 for processing within a virtual machine, monitoring behaviors of the object (and virtual machine) during such processing, and determining whether the object may be malicious based on these monitored behaviors (blocks 540 and 545). The analysis results may be returned to the sensor 110 ₁ via the analysis selection service 140 (block 550). Metadata associated with this analysis (e.g., sensor identifier that requested analysis, cluster workload, object type, etc.) and other analyses may be collected by the cluster management system 190 for use by the analysis monitoring service 145 to assist the analysis selection service 140 in cluster assignment to sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) (block 555).

III. Operational Flow

Referring now to FIG. 6A, a more detailed embodiment of the operational flow in establishing communications between sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) and the malware detection system 100 of FIG. 1 is shown. According to this embodiment of the disclosure, the analysis selection service 140 of the first subsystem 130 includes a cloud broker 610 that is communicatively coupled to the system monitoring logic 630 of the analysis monitoring service 145, where the architecture of the cloud broker 610 and system monitoring logic 630, either individually or collectively, may include one or more hardware processors and memory including software that, when executed, performs their functionality described below. Alternatively, the cloud broker 610 and/or the system monitoring logic 630 may be deployed as software.

The second subsystem 160 features subscription review service 170, which includes licensing logic 640 along with enrollment logic 650 and security content updating logic 670. In accordance with one embodiment of the disclosure, the architecture of the subscription review service 170 may include one or more hardware processors and memory including licensing logic 640 along with enrollment logic 650 and security content updating logic 670 described below. Additionally, the object evaluation service 180 of the second subsystem 160 includes one or more clusters 185 ₁-185 _(N), and/or cluster management system 190 to manage the organization of the cluster(s) 185 ₁-185 _(N) and the configuration of the compute nodes (not shown) deployed within the clusters 185 ₁-185 _(N). The architecture of the cluster management system 190 may include one or more hardware processors and memory including software that, when executed, performs its functionality described below. However, as alternative embodiments, the subscription review service 170 and/or some or all of the object evaluation service 180, including the cluster management system 190, may be deployed as software that is executed by the same or different hardware circuitry deployed within the second subsystem 160.

The sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) may be positioned at various locations on a transmission medium 602 that may be part of an enterprise network 600 (e.g., connected at various ingress points on a wired network or positioned at various locations for receipt of wireless transmissions). For an email threat detection embodiment, a sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₂) may be incorporated in a message transfer agent deployed in-line with the email traffic flow and between an anti-spam gateway and a network's internal mail server (e.g., Microsoft Exchange®). For use in a deployment involving a cloud-based messaging service, the email may be delivered to the sensor 110 ₂ as a next-hop before the email reaches the internal mail server.

As shown in FIG. 6A, deployed as physical or virtual logic units, the sensors 110 ₁-110₂ are located, e.g., at subscriber site 112, which may include an on-premises (subscriber-based) management system (as shown for subscriber site 114). The sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) are configured to monitor data traffic propagating over a network, such as the enterprise network 600 for example. The “traffic” may include an electrical transmissions as files, email messages, web pages, or other types of content.

More specifically, according to one embodiment of the disclosure, the sensor 110 ₁ may be implemented as a network device or deployed as software within a network device that is coupled to the transmission medium 602 directly or is communicatively coupled with the transmission medium 602 via an interface 604 operating as a data capturing device. According to this embodiment, the interface 604 is configured to receive incoming data and subsequently process the incoming data, as described below. For instance, the interface 604 may operate as a network tap (in some embodiments with mirroring capability) that provides to the sensor 110 ₁ at least one or more data submissions 124 acquired from network traffic propagating over the transmission medium 602. Alternatively, although not shown, the sensor 110 ₁ may be configured as an in-line appliance to receive traffic (e.g., files or other objects) and to provide data submissions that are associated with “suspicious” objects for subsequent analysis. As yet another alternative, the sensor 110 ₁ may be configured to receive information that is not provided over the network 600. For instance, as an illustrative example, the interface 604 may operate as a data capturing device (e.g., port) for receiving data submissions manually provided via a suitable dedicated communication link or from portable storage media such as a flash drive.

It is contemplated that the security content updating logic 670 may be communicatively coupled to (i) the cluster management system 190 via a first transmission medium 672 and (ii) one or more subscribed-based management systems (e.g., on-premises management system 606) via a second transmission medium 673. The cluster management system 190 is configured to manage a cluster or multiple clusters of the object evaluation service 180 while the on-premises management system 606 is configured to manage a sensor or multiple sensors of the subscriber site 114, as shown. Hence, updates to the functionality of components within the object evaluation service 180 (e.g., signatures, rules, executables, software patches, OS versions, plug-ins, etc.) may be propagated to the compute nodes 300 ₁-300 _(P) via the cluster management system 190, which received the updates from the security content updating logic 670 via the first transmission medium 672. Similarly, updates to the functionality of components within the sensors 110 ₃-110 _(M) may be propagated via the on-premises management system 606, which received the updates from the security content updating logic 670 via the second transmission medium 673. Furthermore, the security content updating logic 670 supports two-way communications to receive information associated with analysis results conducted by sensors or clusters with the malware detection system 100 via communication path 674 and/or analysis results from other sources outside of the malware detection system 100 via communication path 675.

A. Licensing and Enrollment

Referring now to FIGS. 6A-6B, to obtain access to the malware detection system 100, the sensor 110 ₁ of the sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) may require a software license that includes software license (subscription) credentials 642 necessary for the sensor 110 ₁ to communicate with the enrollment logic 650. Hence, in some embodiments, the customer requests to purchase a subscription, which is communicated to the subscription review service 170. For initiating the request, the customer may enter data via the user interface 606 a of the on-premises management system 606 or a web portal, and typically will need to arrange or make payment of a subscription fee. The subscription review service 170 assigns an identifier to the customer (Customer_ID), maps the identifier of the sensor (Sensor_ID) to the Customer_ID, and further maps at least the service policy level information 127 provided by a paid subscription to the Customer_ID.

In some embodiments, the customer may be offered a plurality of tiers of subscription, each with an associated service policy level specified by a set of subscription attributes. For instance, a subscription attribute may specify a specific duration (or latency) allocated for an analysis of an object by the malware detection system 100 before the analysis times-out and for the classification of the object as malware or benign. Another subscription attribute may specify a maximum number of customer endpoints, e.g., laptops and other computers to be supported and protected against cyber-attacks by the malware detection system. Yet another subscription attribute includes a number and/or rate of data submissions allowed for the subscription tier selected. The subscription attributes are included in the service policy level information 127 of the subscription.

Moreover, the customer may also have an opportunity to select (e.g., via the user interface 606 a) from among a set of customer-configurable attributes, which, though not dictated by the subscription type or tier, once selection, become associated with the subscription, included in the service policy level information 127, and used in in managing the object evaluation services 180 of the malware detection system 100. These customer-configurable attributes may include, by way of example, (i) a geographic location attribute that specifies the customer's preferred or required geographic location for the cluster used to analyze submission data from the customer, e.g., to protect sensitive information, and (ii) a guest image attribute that specifies one or more software profiles (e.g., brand and/or version of computer programs included in the software profiles) preferred or required by the customer.

More specifically, as shown, the sensor 110 ₁ may acquire the software license credentials 642 by transmitting one or more license request messages 644 to licensing logic 640. The license request message(s) 644 may include information uniquely associated with the sensor 110 ₁ (e.g., public Secure Shell “SSH” key assigned to the sensor 110 ₁ or other keying material). Additionally, the license request message(s) 644 may include information associated with the customer and/or financial information to purchase the software license. The software license credentials 642 includes service policy level information 127, which includes subscription information pertaining to the customer that may be made available to the sensor 110 ₁ and/or the on-premises management system 606 associated with that customer. As described above, the service policy level information 127 may include the Customer_ID along with information directed to a service policy (subscription) level of the customer represented by the Customer_ID (e.g., attributes such as QoS level, permissions, access control information, cluster availability for the current service level, remediation settings, geographic location permitted for compute nodes within a selected cluster, notification schemes, etc.) and other attributes.

After receipt of the software license credentials 642, to enroll for access to the malware detection system 100, the sensor 110 ₁ of the sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) establishes a communication session 652 with the enrollment logic 650. During the communication session 652, as shown in FIG. 6B, the enrollment logic 650 receives an enrollment request message 654, which includes information that identifies the sensor 110 ₁ (or the subscriber) at the subscriber site 112. The identifying information may include the Customer_ID, sensor identifier (ID), username, password, and/or keying material. Based on this information, the enrollment logic 650 authenticates the sensor 110 ₁ through use of a directory (e.g., LDAP lookup), and upon authentication, returns a network address 658 to the sensor 110 ₁, such as a uniform resource locator (URL) for example, for accessing the cloud broker 610 of FIG. 6A.

Additionally, as represented by transmission medium 659, the enrollment logic 650 may be communicatively coupled to the cloud broker 610 of FIG. 6A to directly provide an array of attributes, as briefly discussed above, associated with the subscribed customer and/or enrolled sensor 110 ₁. The attributes may be used by the cloud broker 610 of FIG. 6A in assigning a cluster to handle malware analyses on objects provided by the enrolled sensor 110 ₁ (e.g., selection of the cluster may be based on sensor location; sensor assigned QoS; customer subscription level; etc.). Besides subscription attributes, the attributes may include factory set attributes, customer configurable via a command line interface (CLI) or web user interface offered by the sensor or on-premises management system 606, or cloud-configured attributes via connectivity between a customer console (e.g., web portal) that can access cloud services. Additionally, one or more attributes (operationally dynamically generated attributes) may be generated dynamically during operation of the malware detection system, for example, an attribute may specify aspects of a history of communications (e.g., email or web downloads; number or rate of data submissions for in-depth analysis) with the sensor 110 ₁, where the history may assist in the selection of the cluster for the enrolled sensor 110 ₁.

As a result, as shown in FIG. 6A, the sensor 110 ₁ may establish communications with the cloud broker 610 through transmission of the analysis request message 125 which, in turn, establishes the communication session 155 with the selected broker compute node (e.g., broker 300 ₁). Thereafter, the sensor 110 ₁ may provide a data submission 124 (including at least metadata 122) to commence analysis of the object 120. Of course, in the event that the sensor 110 ₁ has not been authenticated via the enrollment logic 650, no data submissions by the sensor 110 ₁ are forwarded by the cloud broker 610 to a selected cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) for processing.

Alternatively, in accordance with a second embodiment of the disclosure as shown in FIG. 6B, in lieu of a sensor directly interacting with the malware detection system 100 for enrollment, the on-premises management system 606 may be configured to indirectly enroll a sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₃). Communicatively coupled to the sensor 110 ₃-110 _(M), the on-premises management system 606 monitors and/or controls operability of the sensor 110 ₃-110 _(M) at subscriber site 114. In response to a triggering event occurring for sensor 110 ₃, the on-premises management system 606 establishes a communication session 660 with the enrollment logic 650 on behalf of the sensor 110 ₃. As described above, via the on-premises management system 606, the enrollment logic 650 authenticates the sensor 110 ₃, where the authentication may include confirming that the sensor 110 ₃ features an active license to the malware detection system 100. Such confirmation may be accomplished by, after receipt of an enrollment request message 662 via the on-premises management system 606 by enrollment logic 650, determining that the message 662 includes information stored in a database in the enrollment logic 650 that identifies the sensor 110 ₁ and/or the customer associated with the sensor 110 ₃ (e.g., Customer_ID, username, password, and/or keying material associated with the sensor 110 ₃). Upon authentication of the sensor 110 ₃, the URL 658 is acquired by the enrollment logic 650 and returned to the sensor 110 ₃ via the on-premises management system 606.

B. Data Submission

Referring back to FIG. 6A, after successful enrollment, the sensor 110 ₁ establishes the communication session 612 with the cloud broker 610 (illustrated separately from signaling that establishes the session 612). In particular, the sensor 110 ₁ transmits an analysis request message 125 to the cloud broker 610, which operates as a proxy on a per sensor basis. According to one embodiment of the disclosure, the analysis request message 125 may include at least an identifier for the sensor 110 ₁ (hereinafter, “Sensor_ID” 614) and some or all of the service policy level information 127. The Sensor_ID 614 may be used in selecting a cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) and a broker compute node of the cluster 185 ₁ (e.g., broker node 300 ₁) to handle malware analyses for the sensor 110 ₁. The Sensor_ID 614 is also passed with the metadata 122 from the sensors 110 ₁ for storage within the distributed queue 310 and subsequently retrieved from the queue 310 by one of the compute nodes 300 ₁-300 _(P) for use (if needed) in retrieval of the corresponding object 120 for analysis. The Sensor_ID 614 accompanies the malware analysis results of the object 120, which are returned from the cluster 185 ₁ to the sensor 110 ₁, and the operational metadata 150 received from the cluster management system 190. A mapping between Sensor_IDs and their corresponding Customer_IDs is accessible to the cloud broker 610 via the one or more databases described above.

Additionally, a portion of the service policy level information 127 (e.g., Customer_ID) may be used in controlling operation of the object evaluation service 180, such as selecting a cluster to handle malware analyses for the sensor 110 ₁. However, according to this embodiment of the disclosure, the Customer_ID is not forwarded to the selected cluster 185 ₁. Rather, using the Sensor_ID or the Customer_ID as a lookup parameter, the cloud broker 610 may be configured to access one or more databases within the malware detection system 100 (e.g., within the second subsystem 160) to collect subscription information that may influence cluster selection. Examples of the subscription information may include, but are not limited or restricted to subscription tier value, QoS threshold(s) based on the subscription level, cluster availability based on the subscription level (e.g., the default cluster for the subscription, cluster selection ordering or preferences if the default cluster is unavailable or is unable to satisfy the QoS threshold(s), cluster restrictions, etc.), geographic location permissions or restrictions for compute nodes associated with the selected cluster, remediation setting (e.g., type of remediation) set for the customer, customer notification scheme preference, and other attributes.

It is contemplated that the entire communication session 155/512 between the sensor 110 ₁ and the cluster 185 ₁ via the cloud broker 610 may remain active until a session termination event has occurred. One example of a session termination event may occur in response to the sensor 110 ₁ detecting that its local data store has no suspicious objects currently awaiting processing by object evaluation service 180. Detection of this event may cause the sensor 110 ₁ to terminate the existing communication session 612 with the cloud broker 610. As another example, a session termination event may occur when the communication session 612 between the sensor 110 ₁ and the cloud broker 610 has been active for a duration that exceeds a prescribed period of time or a scheduled take-down of the selected cluster 185 ₁ is to occur. The monitoring of the duration of the communication session 612 may be handled by the cloud broker 610, sensor 110 ₁, or its on-premises management system 606, in conjunction with the cluster management system 190. The termination of the communication session 612 may be handled once all suspicious objects from the sensor 110 ₁ that were awaiting analysis by the selected cluster 185 ₁ prior to the session termination event have been completed.

Referring still to FIG. 6A, the system monitoring logic 630 is communicatively coupled to the cloud broker 610 of the first subsystem 130 and the cluster management system 190 of the second subsystem 160. Configured to provide the cloud broker 610 with sufficient visibility of cluster and/or sensor operability, the system monitoring logic 630 collects, on a periodic or aperiodic basis, the operational metadata 150 from the cluster management system 190. Thereafter, the system monitoring logic 630 provides the cloud broker 610 with either access to a portion of the operational metadata 150 or with cluster selection values 157 that can be based on at least portions of the operational metadata 150 representing the operability and availability of the clusters 185 ₁-185 _(N) hosted by the object evaluation service 180 and on the service policy level information 127 associated with the subscription for the customer (e.g., attributes associated with a particular sensor or a subscriber such as QoS level, permissions, access control information such as URL for accessing the cloud broker 610, etc.).

According to one embodiment of the disclosure, the cluster selection values 157 may be based on cluster-based metadata, e.g., metadata representing the availability of each cluster 185 ₁-185 _(N) to analyze an incoming object for malware. For example, the cluster selection values 157 may be based on cluster queue size and cluster workload. The cluster selection values 157 may also or alternatively include information that represents a higher level of specificity than the foregoing cluster-based metadata, e.g., subscriber-based metadata and/or compute node (CN) based metadata.

Examples of the cluster-based metadata, subscriber-based metadata and CN-based metadata include some or all of the following:

Cluster-Based Metadata: Operational information regarding the cluster(s), including (i) workload (e.g., cluster workload or utilization level, etc.); (ii) location (e.g., cluster geographic location, etc.); (iii) configuration (e.g., software profile(s) supported by cluster, etc.); and/or (iv) storage capacity (e.g., queue size for use in storage of metadata awaiting processing to prompt fetching of the corresponding object, etc.).

Subscriber-Based Metadata: Operational information regarding the customer(s) or one or more of the sensors of the customer(s), including: (i) submission rate (e.g., number of objects submitted (per sensor or per subscriber) over a given time period or other aggregate, rate of submission over a given time period such as number of objects submitted” divided by “given time period,” etc.); (ii) submission type (e.g., types of objects submitted (per sensor or per subscriber) over a given time period or other aggregate, etc.); and/or (iii) detection rate (e.g., number of submitted objects determined as potentially malicious by a cluster over a given time period or other aggregate, etc.).

CN-Based Metadata: (i) node workload (e.g., workload or utilization level of a particular compute node “CN”, etc.); (ii) location (e.g., geographic location of the particular CN, etc.); (iii) configuration (e.g., software profile(s) supported by the particular CN, etc.); and/or (iv) rate of submission (e.g., “number of objects” divided by “given time period” by the particular CN).

It is contemplated that the system monitoring logic 630 may include a software module (e.g., a rule-based routine) that is configured to receive the service policy level information 127 (e.g., customer preferences) that may influence the selection of a cluster and/or a compute node within that selected cluster. For instance, as an illustrative example, the system monitoring logic 630 may be accessible by the customer or a third party associated with the customer via the cloud broker 610. The cloud broker 610 may provide a web-based interface, which includes subscriber-selectable preferences for object processing (e.g., types of software profiles, workload thresholds, geographic location based on sensor location, etc.). The access by the customer may be effected via the on-premises management system 606 or other computer system or device. Upon selection, the service policy level information 127 may be passed to the system monitoring logic 630. As an illustrative example, the customer (or third party) may select only compute nodes that feature a certain software profile or certain software profiles to conduct virtual machine-based behavioral analysis of an object for malware originating from the subscriber's network, thereby eliminating those clusters that do not feature compute nodes with the software profile(s). Additionally, or in the alternative, compute node selection may be at least partially performed automatically (without subscriber input) based on at least a portion of the service policy level information 127 (e.g., Customer_ID), which may restrict or enlarge the types of compute nodes or groupings of compute nodes based on subscription level, geographic location based on the location of sensor having the object for submission, etc.).

In order to ensure compute node configurability, the system monitor logic 630 may be configured to provide cluster selection values 157 that include metadata used by the cloud broker 610 to control what compute node or compute nodes are permitted to process submitted objects from a particular subscriber. For instance, this metadata (e.g., a portion of metadata 122 as illustrated in FIG. 1), which is used in the retrieval of an object for malware analysis, may signal the cloud broker 610 to appropriately tag the metadata 122 prior to transmission to a targeted broker compute node (e.g., broker compute node 300 ₁) of a selected cluster for temporary storage in the cluster queue 310. The tag may be used to identify preferred or requisite compute nodes (or group of compute nodes) for recovery of the metadata 122 for subsequent retrieval of a corresponding object for malware analysis. Each compute node (e.g., compute 300₁), when accessing the cluster queue 310 to retrieve metadata, may scan the queue 310 for a prescribed time or prescribed number of entries (e.g., less than 10) to determine whether any of the queued metadata is targeted for exclusive handling by that compute node 300 ₁ (or a group of which the compute node is a member). If so, the compute node 300 ₁ may retrieve that metadata thereby deviating from a first-in, first-out (FIFO) queue retrieval scheme.

The FIFO retrieval scheme may be the default retrieval scheme for all compute nodes (e.g., compute node 300 ₁-300 _(P)) in a cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) in some embodiments. In such embodiments, upon completing processing of an object, the compute node 185 ₁ simply retrieves the metadata of the next entry in the queue 310 that remains unprocessed and available for processing by a compute node. In other embodiments that are equipped to provide certain subscribers premium service with reduced latency, one or more of the compute nodes of a cluster may be preselected (or an entire cluster is selected) to deviate from a FIFO retrieval scheme, whereby each of these compute node(s) seeks to next process an entry tagged as being from premium service customers. For example, these compute node(s) may check for the next tagged entry in the queue 310 corresponding to such premium service or premium service subscriber, and process that entry. In some embodiments, the compute node(s) may check only “n” next entries in the queue 310, where the number “n” is a positive integer, and if such an entry is not found, returns to retrieval of the metadata through a FIFO scheme by default so as to select the least recent (top) available entry.

Upon receipt of the cluster selection values 157, the cloud broker 610 is better able to select a cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) from the cluster 185 ₁-185 _(N) for handling analyses of objects from the sensor 110 ₁, where such selection is governed by policy and routing rules within the rules engine 142. The selection of the cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) may be based, at least in part, on the cluster selection values 157 and/or content within the analysis request message 125 itself (e.g., service policy level information 127) as applied to the policy and routing rules by the rules engine 142 (see FIG. 7) within the cloud broker 610. Stated differently, the cluster selection values 157 provided from the system monitoring logic 630 and/or at least a portion of the service policy level information 127 provided from the sensor 110 ₁ or accessed from a data store accessible by the cloud broker 610 (e.g., one or more databases) operate as input for the policy and routing rules within the rules engine 142. Upon selection of the cluster, a new communication session (e.g., tunnel) is established between the cloud broker 610 and one of the broker compute nodes within the cluster 185 ₁ for receipt of data submissions from the sensor 110 ₁.

Additionally, the policy and routing rules controlling operations of the cloud broker 610 may be designed to confirm compliance with one or more performance and/or operation thresholds for the selected subscription level by comparing values associated with certain cluster selection values 157 (or operational metadata 150) to values associated with certain attributes within the service policy level information 127. In response to determining that the operability of the cluster 185 ₁ is not compliant with performance and/or operation thresholds for a subscription level selected by the customer (e.g., failure to satisfy a prescribed number of performance thresholds or a particular performance threshold, number of submissions exceeds a prescribed maximum, etc.), the cloud broker may issue an alert to the sensor 110 ₁ regarding detected non-compliance. The alert may include a message that is routed to an on-premises management system or an endpoint 608 controlled by an administrator provides one or more suggestions to improve performance (e.g., increase capacity through an increased subscription level, sensor-cluster rebalancing, decrease configurable analysis parameters such as analysis time per object or number of analyses performed per object, terminate communications with the selected cluster and seek a different cluster, etc.).

As an illustrative example, the policy and routing rules of the rules engine 142 may be coded to select from a certain subset of clusters (e.g., clusters 185 ₁-185 ₂), numbering less than the available clusters (e.g., e.g., clusters 185 ₁-185 ₅), based on at least a portion of the service policy level information 127 provided to the sensor 110 ₁ or the on-premises management system 606, and/or retrieval of subscription information retrieved using a portion of the service policy level information 127 (e.g., Customer_ID) as described above. Thereafter, the selection of a particular cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) from the subset of clusters (e.g., clusters 185 ₁-185 ₂) may be based on an evaluation of cluster selection values 157 associated with each cluster of the subset of clusters. This evaluation may include (i) a comparison of the current workload of each cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁ and cluster 185 ₂) as represented by certain cluster selection values 157; (ii) a determination as to which cluster(s) of the subset of clusters (e.g., clusters 185 ₁ or 185 ₂) support a software profile needed to process the type of object for analysis (e.g., PDF reader application, word processing application, a web browser) or a software profile required by a particular subscriber as represented by other cluster selection values 157; and/or (iii) a determination of the geographic region in which each cluster of the subset of clusters (185 ₁ or 185 ₂) is located as represented by the service policy level information 127. It is contemplated that the ordering (or weighting) for some or all of these rules may vary for different versions of the policy and routing rules of the rules engine 142.

Other aspects of the operation of the object evaluation service 180 may also be influenced by the service policy level information 127 for the customer and operational metadata related to the clusters of the malware detection system. For example, the cloud broker 610 may cooperate with the system monitoring logic 630 and the cluster management system 190 to assure the analysis of an object by a selected cluster commences or completes prior to a latency threshold being surpassed, where the latency threshold is specified by an attribute, for example, an attributed associated with the subscription tier purchased by a customer or a customer-configured attribute, depending on the embodiment.

Besides assigning a sensor to a particular cluster, the cloud broker 610 may be configured to return statistical information 192 in response to the management query message 194. The statistical information 192 is based on one or more portions of the operational metadata 150 and is included as part of reporting data 193. The reporting data 193 may be aggregated and displayed, by the on-premises management system 606 or a centralized management system, in a manner that is directed to the operability of any customer (as the Customer_IDs may be cross-referenced to the Sensor_IDs) as well as any sensor, any cluster, or any compute node within one of the clusters. In particular, the management query message 194 may correspond to a request directed to the cloud broker 610 for metadata directed to the operability of a particular cluster, compute node, or sensor. After authenticating the node (e.g., sensor 110 ₁) and/or the user of the node that submitted the management query message 194, the statistical information 192 may be returned back to that node (see FIG. 1) or routed to another node as the reporting data 193 (See FIG. 6A).

C. Subscription Service Levels

The malware detection system 100 may offer differentiated subscription levels or tiers of service, managed by the cloud broker 610 and the broker compute nodes 300 ₁-300 ₁ (i>1) in association with the license/enrollment services (described above) or the authentication node (described below). According to one illustrative example, as described above, based on an identifier of the sensor (Sensor_ID) and/or an identifier of the customer (Customer_ID), the cloud broker 610 (acting as an initial coordinator) can query enrollment/license logic 650/640 (or authentication node 760 of FIG. 7) to obtain QoS information as part of the service policy level information (including one or more related attributes) stored in a database created for the customer. The customer can pay a premium fee to obtain a higher subscription level that guarantees minimal delays (low latencies) for commencement or completion of analysis of submissions. The cloud broker 610 (and/or a selected broker compute node 300 ₁) can push all data submissions from sensors (and their corresponding subscribers who paid for this higher subscription level) to a high priority queue (an allocated part of queue 310) to handle the analysis of the data submission within a pre-agreed time allotment. In contrast data submissions handled by a non-premium level of service (lower subscription level) are provided to a different “standard” queue. Alternatively, the cloud broker 610 (and/or a selected broker compute node 300 ₁) can tag entries in the queue (not shown) as premium requests and the analytic computer nodes will process a number of premium requests before resuming with processing a standard request.

As another example, for entry level service, the distributed queue 310 may be monitored by logic within the cloud broker 610 (e.g., accounting and license enforcement service described above), where the malware detection system may limit the total number of data submission per subscriber (subscriber site) per a prescribed time period (e.g., hour/day/week/month/year). Alternatively, the malware detection system may limit the data submissions based on a prescribed amount of content based on the level of service per the subscription (e.g., 1 gigabytes/second “GPS” of traffic for Tier 1 service level and 2 GPS for Tier 2 service level).

As yet another example, the data submissions from a certain customer (Customer_ID) or certain sensors (e.g., Sensor_ID) at subscriber sites 112 and/or 114 may be tracked by the cloud broker 610 (and/or selected broker compute node). Such tracking may be conducted where the customer is billed based on the overall usage of the object evaluation service 180. As a result, the level of subscription paid for by the customer may be used to control throughput, volume of submissions, and/or SLA (service level agreement).

Also, the malware detection system may differentiate service level commitments based on the type of object, for example, URL analysis may be performed in a shorter time than file analysis. Alternatively, different clusters or analytic compute nodes within a single cluster can be dedicated to certain tiers of service or types of object analysis (URLs, email, files, webpages) that may consume more or less time to complete.

IV. Cloud Broker Architecture

FIG. 7 is an exemplary embodiment of the cloud broker 610 being a portion of the logic implemented within the analysis selection service 140 of FIG. 1. The cloud broker 610 offers centralized control of policy and routing decisions for object evaluation service 180 and a level of abstraction that precludes exposure of a particular broker compute node within the clusters 185 ₁-185 _(N) to the sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M). This level of abstraction may assist in compliance with certain outbound firewall rules at an enterprise network 600 of FIG. 6A that may require a single endpoint connection. According to this embodiment, the cloud broker 610 includes one or more proxy modules 700 ₁-700 _(R) (R≥1), interface logic 710 and reporting logic 720.

Herein, the proxy module(s) 700 ₁-700 _(R) include one or more software modules that collectively operate as a proxy server, which conducts load balancing of communications from the sensors 110 ₁-110 _(M) as governed by the policy and routing rules of the rules engine 142. The load balancing is based, at least in part, on the cluster selection values 157 that are produced by the system monitoring logic 630 from the collected operational metadata 150. These cluster selection values 157 are made available to the proxy module(s) 700 ₁-700 _(R) via interface logic 710, which provides a mechanism to propagate load-balancing updates to the proxy module 700 ₁-700 _(R). Configured to select a cluster (and in one embodiment a particular broker compute node), the proxy module(s) 700 ₁-700 _(R) may use the cluster selection values 157 as input parameters for the rule engine 142 which, based on the policy and routing rules, results in the selection of a particular cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) from the set of clusters 185 ₁-185 _(N) available to a requesting sensor (e.g., sensor 110 ₁).

According to another embodiment, besides the cluster selection values 157, service policy level information 127 within the analysis request message 125 from the sensor 110 ₁ may be considered by at least one of the proxy modules (e.g., proxy module 700 _(R)) in determining a selected cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁). For instance, as an example, the Sensor_ID included as part of the analysis request message 125 may be provided to at least one of the proxy modules (e.g., proxy module 700 _(R)), where the Sensor_ID may identify a geographic region of the sensor and the Sensor_ID may be used to retrieve additional service policy level information 127 from a data store within the first subsystem 130 or a data store within the second subsystem 160 (e.g., a database within the subscription review service 170). Additionally, or in the alternative, the Customer_ID may be included as part of the analysis request message 125 for use in accessing service policy level information 127 maintained within the cluster broker 610 or stored remotely from the cluster broker 610.

Depending on such information, the proxy module 700 _(R) may utilize (i) the cluster selection values 157 accessible from the sensor monitoring node 630, (ii) the Sensor_ID and/or the Customer_ID and its associated service policy level information as other inputs for the policy and routing rules in determining what cluster (and/or broker compute node) to select for communications with the sensor 110 ₁ (e.g., increasing the cluster selection value associated with a cluster (or compute node) within a certain geographic proximity to the sensor than clusters outside this geographic region). Also, a portion of the service policy level information 127 may be considered by at least one of the proxy modules (e.g., proxy module 700 ₁) in determining the selected cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁). For instance, the QoS level may cause the rules engine 142 to consider different cluster(s) or subsets of clusters to which the sensor 110 ₁ is permitted to communicate. A high QoS level may provide the sensor 110 ₁ with a greater number of possible clusters than a low QoS level.

The reporting logic 720 of the cloud broker 610 gathers metrics from the proxy module(s) 700 ₁-700 _(R). These metrics may be aggregated to formulate statistical information that is searchable and available to metric collection tools for display.

The key storage modules 740 operates as a key value store that maintains state information, including information as to which clusters assigned to which sensors, keying material (e.g., keys) and relevant operational metadata for use by the cloud broker 610.

It is contemplated that the proxy modules 700 ₁-700 _(R) may utilize information from an authentication node 760, which operates as a backend system in providing stored information (gathered from one or more subscription review services) that allows the proxy modules 700 ₁-700 _(R) confirm the accuracy of the service policy level information 127 submitted by the sensor 110 ₁. For instance, the authentication node 760 may be used to confirm the subscription, QoS level and/or permissions assigned to the sensor 110 ₁. Additionally, the authentication node 760 may include additional information that, when provided to the rules engine 142, influences cluster selection for the sensor 110 ₁. For instance, the Customer_ID may identify a subscriber that may be re-assigned to a higher or lower QoS level based on partial or non-payment of the subscription.

V. Alternative Cloud Broker Architecture

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a second exemplary embodiment of a scalable, malware detection system is shown. Herein, the first subsystem 130 further comprises cloud-based analysis logic 800, a local data store 810 and a global data store 820. The cloud-based analysis logic 800 provides operability during the enrollment phase and data submission phase of the malware analysis. In particular, the cloud-based analysis logic 800 is configured to receive an enrollment request message 830, which includes information 832 that identifies the sensor 110 ₁ and/or the subscriber associated with the sensor 110 ₁ (e.g., username, password, keying materials such as a key, etc.). Based on this information, the cloud-based analysis logic 800 routes the information 832 to the enrollment logic 650 located at the second subsystem 160.

As shown, the enrollment logic 650 accesses a directory (e.g., LDAP) 835 to authenticate the sensor 110 ₁, and upon authentication, returns access control credentials 840 from the directory 835 to the enrollment logic 650. The access control credentials 840 may be provided to sensor 110 ₁ via cloud-based analysis logic 800 or directly to the sensor 110 ₁ via communication path 845. The access control credentials 840 may include URL 842. The keying material assigned to the sensor 110 ₁ is provided to the cloud broker 610 so that the cloud broker 610 may terminate communications with a cluster (e.g., 185 ₁) selected to operate with the sensor 110 ₁. The URL 842 provides the sensor 110 ₁ with an ability to access the cloud broker 610 so that the sensor 110 ₁ can establish communications with the cloud broker 610 to provide a data submission (e.g., metadata 122) to commence analysis of the object 120. As an optional feature, along with the URL 842, the sensor 110 ₁ may provide the Sensor_ID 844 and the service policy level information 846, which may be used to select the particular cluster (e.g., cluster 185 ₁) for interaction with the sensor 110 ₁.

After receipt of the credentials 840, the sensor 110 ₁ may provide a data submission 850 to the cloud-based analysis logic 800, which conducts a preliminary analysis on the metadata associated with a corresponding object (e.g., metadata 122 associated with the object 120) to determine whether the object 120 is suspicious, malicious or benign. The analysis may involve a comparison of contents within the global data store 820, which may include a black list and a white list. The “black list” includes identifiers for all objects previously detected as malicious by the cluster 185 ₁ while the “white list” includes identifiers for all objects previously detected as “benign” by the cluster 185 ₁ or any other cluster of the second subsystem 160. If the cloud-based analysis logic 800 determines that the object 120 is benign, such as confirming that a portion of the metadata associated with the object compares to an entry in the white list for examples, the cloud-based analysis logic 800 returns analytic results to the sensor 110 ₁ that identify that the object 120 is not malicious. However, the cloud-based analysis logic 800 is inconclusive or determines that the object 120 is malicious (e.g., the portion of the metadata compares to an entry in the black list), the metadata 122 is provided to the cloud broker 610 for routing to a selected cluster based, at least in part, on the operational metadata 150 retrieved by the system monitoring logic 630.

In the foregoing description, the invention is described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. However, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A computerized method for authenticating access to a subscription-based service, the method comprising: receiving, by a subscription review service, a request to subscribe to the subscription-based service that is configured to analyze one or more objects for a potential presence of malware representing an attempted cyber-attack, the request being a message including information that identifies a sensor that is (i) associated with a customer and (ii) communicatively coupled to the subscription-based service; receiving service policy level information including an address to access a cloud broker; and using, by the cloud broker, the service policy level information to (i) select a cluster of a plurality of clusters that analyzes whether the one or more objects are associated with the attempted cyber-attack by at least analyzing an identifier of the sensor included as part of the service policy level information provided to the cloud broker to select the cluster based on a geographical location of the sensor determined by the identifier of the sensor, and (ii) establish a communication session between the sensor and the cluster via the cloud broker until termination of the communication session, wherein the service policy level information is associated with the customer and is used in accessing the subscription-based service, the service policy level information including an identifier assigned to the customer.
 2. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the using of the service policy level information by the cloud broker in selecting the cluster comprises using an identifier of the sensor in retrieval of the service policy level information from one or more databases separate from the sensor and the cloud broker.
 3. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the cloud broker is configured to select the cluster of the plurality of clusters based on both the geographical location of the sensor and one or more attributes of the service policy level information that includes geographic restrictions in selecting one of the plurality of clusters as the cluster.
 4. The computerized method of claim 1 further comprising: receiving, by the cloud broker, information based on operational metadata, the operational metadata includes metadata that pertains to an operating state of at least the cluster of the plurality of clusters.
 5. The computerized method of claim 4, wherein the selecting the cluster by the cloud broker further includes conducting an analysis by the cloud broker that the information based on the operational metadata meets or exceeds one or more performance-based attributes of the service policy level information.
 6. The computerized method of claim 4, wherein the operational metadata includes a current rate of analysis supported by the cluster and the service policy level information includes a quality of service (QoS) attribute that identifies a minimum rate of analysis offered by a subscription level assigned to the customer.
 7. The computerized method of claim 4, wherein the operational metadata includes a guest image, including an operating system and one or more applications, supported by the cluster and the service policy level information includes an attribute that identifies a type of guest image supported by the cluster.
 8. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the service policy level information includes an identifier assigned to the customer and the cloud broker being configured to use the identifier assigned to the customer to access one or more databases to access performance-based attributes used by the cloud broker to select the cluster of the plurality of clusters.
 9. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the cloud broker is positioned on a separate subsystem as the subscription review service and communicatively coupled to the subscription review service over a network.
 10. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the using of the service policy level information by the cloud broker includes using an identifier of the customer being part of the service policy level information to collect subscription information being used by the cloud broker in selecting of the cluster.
 11. A computerized method for authenticating access to a subscription-based service, the method comprising: providing, by a subscription review service, a request to subscribe to the subscription-based service that is configured to analyze one or more objects for a potential presence of malware representing an attempted cyber-attack, the request being a message including information that identifies a sensor that is (i) associated with a customer and (ii) communicatively coupled to the subscription-based service, wherein the request prompting a return of service policy level information including an address to access a cloud broker; receiving, by the cloud broker, the service policy level information and information based on operational metadata, the operational metadata includes metadata that pertains to an operating state of at least the cluster of the plurality of clusters; and using, by the cloud broker, the service policy level information to (i) select a cluster of a plurality of clusters that analyzes whether the one or more objects are associated with the attempted cyber-attack and (ii) establish a communication session between the sensor and the cluster via the cloud broker until termination of the communication session, wherein the service policy level information is associated with the customer and is used in accessing the subscription-based service, the service policy level information including an identifier assigned to the customer.
 12. The computerized method of claim 11, wherein the selecting the cluster by the cloud broker further includes conducting an analysis by the cloud broker that the information based on the operational metadata meets or exceeds one or more performance-based attributes of the service policy level information.
 13. The computerized method of claim 11, wherein the operational metadata includes a current rate of analysis supported by the cluster and the service policy level information includes a quality of service (QoS) attribute that identifies a minimum rate of analysis offered by a subscription level assigned to the customer.
 14. The computerized method of claim 11, wherein the operational metadata includes a guest image, including an operating system and one or more applications, supported by the cluster and the service policy level information includes an attribute that identifies a type of guest image supported by the cluster.
 15. The computerized method of claim 11, wherein the service policy level information includes an identifier assigned to the customer and the cloud broker being configured to use the identifier assigned to the customer to access one or more databases to access performance-based attributes used by the cloud broker to select the cluster of the plurality of clusters.
 16. The computerized method of claim 11, where the using of the service policy level information by the cloud broker in selecting the cluster comprises analyzing an identifier of the sensor included as part of the service policy level information and using the identifier of the sensor in selecting the cluster based on a geographical location of the sensor determined by the identifier of the sensor.
 17. The computerized method of claim 11, wherein the using of the service policy level information by the cloud broker in selecting the cluster comprises using of the identifier of the sensor in selecting the cluster based on both the geographical location of the sensor and one or more attributes of the service policy level information that includes geographic restrictions in selecting one of the plurality of clusters as the cluster.
 18. The computerized method of claim 11, wherein the cloud broker is positioned on a separate subsystem from the subscription review service.
 19. A computerized method for authenticating access to a subscription-based service, the method comprising: subscribing to the subscription-based service configured to analyze one or more objects for a potential presence of malware representing an attempted cyber-attack, wherein the subscribing to the subscription-based service includes (i) sending a request being a message directed to the subscription-based service and including information that identifies a sensor associated with a customer and (ii) receiving service policy level information including an address to access a cloud broker; and receiving, by the cloud broker, the service policy level information to (i) select a cluster of a plurality of clusters that analyzes whether the one or more objects are associated with the attempted cyber-attack by at least analyzing an identifier of the sensor included as part of the service policy level information provided to the cloud broker to select the cluster based on a geographical location of the sensor determined by the identifier of the sensor, and (ii) establish a communication session between the sensor and the cluster via the cloud broker until termination of the communication session.
 20. The computerized method of claim 19, wherein the cloud broker to select the cluster using of the identifier of the sensor in selecting the cluster based on both the geographical location of the sensor and one or more attributes of the service policy level information that includes geographic restrictions in selecting one of the plurality of clusters as the cluster.
 21. The computerized method of claim 19 further comprising: receiving, by the cloud broker, information based on operational metadata, the operational metadata includes metadata that pertains to an operating state of at least the cluster of the plurality of clusters.
 22. The computerized method of claim 21, wherein the cloud broker to further select the cluster of the plurality of clusters by at least conducting an analysis by the cloud broker that the information based on the operational metadata meets or exceeds one or more performance-based attributes of the service policy level information.
 23. The computerized method of claim 22, wherein the operational metadata includes a current rate of analysis supported by the cluster and the service policy level information includes a quality of service (QoS) attribute that identifies a minimum rate of analysis offered by a subscription level assigned to the customer.
 24. The computerized method of claim 22, wherein the operational metadata includes a guest image, including an operating system and one or more applications, supported by the cluster and the service policy level information includes an attribute that identifies a type of guest image supported by the cluster. 